All Things Must Fight to Live by Bryan Mealer Stories of War and Deliverance in Congo

In All Things Must Fight to Live, Bryan Mealer takes readers on a harrowing two-thousand mile journey through Congo, where gun-toting militia still rape and kill with impunity. Amidst burnt-out battlefields where armies still wrestle for control, into the dark corners of the forests, and along the high savanna, where thousands have been slaughtered and quickly forgotten, Mealer searches for signs that Africa's most troubled state will soon rise from ruin. At once illuminating and startling, All Things Must Fight to Live is a searing portrait of an emerging country facing unimaginable upheaval and almost impossible odds, as well as an unflinching look at the darkness that continues to exist in the hearts of men. It is non-fiction at its finest-powerful, moving, necessary.

Bryan Mealer was born in Odessa, TX and spent his childhood in West Texas and San Antonio. He graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, and spent time as a city reporter for the Austin Chronicle. He then moved to New York City and worked as an assistant editor at Esquire magazine before moving to Nairobi, Kenya to become a freelance reporter. He later was the Associated Press staff correspondent in Kinshasa, Congo. He now lives in Providence, Rhode Island and contributes to several magazines.

Unrated Critic Reviews for All Things Must Fight to Live

Kirkus Reviews

The author frequently mentions the respite both he and the locals found in music: the Congolese in Kinshasa’s ever-present live performances, “brash and thumping and spilling down the street at four a.m.”;

Publishers Weekly

In 1996 the brutal civil war in Rwanda spilled into neighboring Congo, triggering a conflict that has seethed for 12 long years, claimed more lives than any since WWII and received little acknowledgment or aid from the international community.